The Pre-Industrial Consumer in England and America

This book is a comprehensive study of English and American consumers and consumption before industrialization and mass urbanization. Shammas examines the changes in what rural households bought on the market and what they produced themselves. She charts the incredible growth in what contemporaries called groceries--tobacco, suger, and caffeine drinks--and in semi-durables--lighter textiles, pottery, glassware, and paper products--and discusses the effects of this growth on diet and domestic environment. She also considers the process whereby the new goods got distributed. The sudden proliferation of shops and their relationship to market towns and peddling is also treated in depth. The comparison between England and America is of particular interest because the two were inextricably linked by trade and culture, yet their material situation, including land availability, population density, social structure, and natural resources differed greatly. Current notions about "consumer revolutions" and "consumer societies" are challenged and the author offers an alternative framework for evaluating changes in consumption patterns over time.